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Downloaded From: Version: Accepted Version Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan DOI Sarnoe, Lee and Paucar-Caceres, Alberto and Pagano, Rosane and Castellini, Maria (2018) Using SSM in Project Management: aligning ob- jectives and outcomes in organizational change projects. In: Problem Struc- turing Approaches and Management for Projects: Demonstrating Successful Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 247-276. ISBN 978-3-319-93263-7 Downloaded from: https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk/625116/ Version: Accepted Version Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-93263-7 Please cite the published version https://e-space.mmu.ac.uk Chapter 9 – Using SSM in Project Management: aligning objectives and outcomes in organizational change projects Lee Sarnoe1 Alberto Paucar-Caceres1 Rosane Pagano1 María Castellini2 1 Manchester Metropolitan University Business School All Saints Campus, Oxford Road, Manchester, M15 6BH, UK 2 Facultad de Ingeniería y Tecnología Informática, Universidad de Belgrano Villanueva 1324, Buenos Aires, Argentina Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de Buenos Aires Av. Gral. Las Heras 2214, Buenos Aires, Argentina Abstract This paper aims to contribute to the use of SSM in Project Management, by exploring what happens in a real-world organisational change projects when stakeholders seem to agree in a set of initial-objectives and final-outcomes of the project. SSM Analyses are then use to explore the misalignments between initial-objectives and final-outcomes along the project life cycle. Initial results suggest that SSM helps to “shadow” these misalignments when structuring an unclear complex situation such as organisational change projects and that the application of SSM facilitates negotiations, generates debate, understanding and learning. This leads to meaningful collaboration among stakeholders and enables key changes to be introduced reflecting on the potential misalignments. Results also support SSM analysis of changes in role, norms or value adversely influencing project outcome. Keywords: Soft System Methodology; Project Management; Organisational Change; Problem Structuring Methods; Soft OR 1. Introduction Project management (PM) has evolved from the traditional project management (PM) theory to managing change projects across different organisational departments. (Winter, 2006; Silvius et al., 2012; Morris, 2002; Koskela et al., 2002). Silvius et al., (2012) states that Project Management now include complex organisational change and not just the traditional construction and building projects. Projects are the instrument of change and adequate change requires the right adjustment to existing processes, ‘Improvement requires change, Kenett & Baker,(2010:46). Project Management now includes tools and techniques to manage complex organisational change projects. From the perspective of management science, contribution from the operational research (OR) field towards project management has been from the ‘hard’ end of the operational research (OR) ‘soft/hard’ spectrum and it seems that there has been few explicit examples of the use of soft or problem structuring method (PSM) in PM. That have said, a recent paper reports the use of SSM in new application areas such as sustainable development, knowledge management and project management, Hanafizadeh & Mehrabioun (2017). This paper illustrate the use of soft system methodology (SSM), a particularly successful and widely regarded PSM in five real life change projects of the Change Management and Process Improvement (CMPI) unit at a University in the north of England (‘UniNorthEngland’) by highlighting how the use of SSM approach in organisational change projects could help to reduce such misalignments. The paper aims to highlight the use of problem structuring method in identifying perceived problems and in particular, illustrate the role of soft system methodology (SSM) at the front-end of CMPI projects as tools that could assist in defining the project objective or what need to be achieve. We aim to understand why there is a deviation between objective and outcome and we draw on SSM’s cultural stream mode of application (Checkland 2000, 2006) to make sense of this. SSM cultural stream suggests three types of tools of analysis known as ‘Analyses one’ (intervention itself); ‘Analyses two’ (Social) and ‘Analyses three’ (political). We argue that these tools may help to understand the role of people involved, its attributes or behaviours and organisational cultural elements and help us to understand and hopefully minimise the misalignments between objectives and results. Emphasis is place on the role of soft system methodology (SSM) at the front-end of the projects as tools that could assist reduce misalignments between objective and outcome. The paper is organised as follows. After this introduction, in section 2, we outline SSM’s main features. In section 3 we discuss the application of SSM to Project Management. We present the context and the setting for the application. In section 4 the main findings and conclusions are presented. 2. Soft Systems Methodology Peter Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology (SSM) is one of the most developed Systems Methodologies in terms of its theoretical premises and philosophical underpinnings. It is also one of the most widely PSM used in the UK and in other parts of the world (Mingers, and Taylor, (1992); Ledington, et al, (1997); Macadam, R. D. and Packham, R. G. (1989); Macadam, R. D. et al., (1990); Macadam, R. D. et al., (1995), Rodriguez-Ulloa (1994a, 2003), Wilson (1984, 2001) amongst others. During the 1970s, Checkland and his colleagues at Lancaster University questioned the use of hard systems thinking to real-world situations and started to test a new methodology that shifted the systemicity from the real world to the process of enquiry itself. In essence, SSM articulates a learning process which takes the form of an enquiry process in a situation that people are concerned. This process leads to action in a never ending learning cycle: once the action is taken, a new situation with new characteristics arises and the learning process starts again. The methodology is summarised in Fig 1. This is the SSM best known methodology and although Checkland has expressed a most flexible way of applying his ideas in his latest book (Checkland and Scholes, 1990), the 7 stage methodology is still the most convincing and helpful account of the SSM enquiry. 1 The basic structure of SSM rest on the idea that in order to tackle real-world situations, we need to make sure that the ‘real-world’ is separated from the ‘systems thinking world’. This distinction is crucial for SSM because that assure that we won’t see systems ‘out there’; that is in the real world. SSM urges us to consider ‘systems’ as abstract concepts (preferably, the word ‘holons’ should be used) which, when use against the real-world, can eventually help to bring some improvements to the situation concerned. SSM follows an interpretive perspective (Checkland (1981, 1986), Checkland and Scholes (1990), Wilson (1984, 2001), Jackson (1992)). This can be summarised as follows: According to Checkland, life world is an ever changing flux of events and ideas and ‘managing’ means reacting to that flux. We perceive and evaluate, take action(s) which itself becomes part of this flux which lead to next perceptions and evaluations and to more actions and so on. It follows that SSM assumes that different actors of the situation will evaluate and perceive this flux differently creating issues that the manager must cope. Here, SSM offers to managers the systems ideas as a helpful weapon to tackle problematic situations arising from the issues. The world outside seems highly interconnected forming wholes; therefore it seems that the concept ‘system’ can help us to cope with the intertwined reality we perceive. Figure 9.1 shows the basic structure of Soft Systems Methodology. Take Action in the situation Find out about the to bring some improvement problem situation Step 5: Compare 4 with 2 Step 1: The problem Step 6: Feasible, desirable changes Step 2: Problem situation expressed Step 7: Take action to improve the problem situation Real world flux of events and ideas Systems Thinking about the real world Step 3: Name relevant Step 4: Build conceptual human activity systems in models from the root root definitions definitions .Figure 9.1. The Basic Structure of Soft Systems Methodology adapted from (Checkland 1981, p.163) 2 SSM is a systems-based approach to problem structuring and taking action in ill-structured, complex circumstances developed through real-world problem situations (Checkland and Poulter, 2006). Checkland and his associates realised that in most circumstances the objective or aim were part of the problem (Checkland in Rosenhead and Mingers, 2001). Without a clear agreed objectives, or if the objectives are poorly defined, then the result may lead to misalignment between aim and output; thus, “the primary contribution of SSM is in the analysis of complex situations where there are divergent views about the definition of the problem” (Mingers et al., 2010 p. 1151). The thinking behind the development of the approach was to seek ways of dealing with complex, poorly managed, and fuzzy problems and especially those problems that had high potentials of creating social drama (Furnell 2008: 294). SSM has widely been used in the structural thinking and the intervention into complex organizational problems by addressing management systems that are complex in nature, and it seeks to assess as many diverse possibilities as possible. The approach
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